Commentary: Sixers don't need smiles, they need a spark

The other day, they likely saw the 76ers — well, those who didn’t board the team’s charter flight home after Wednesday’s loss to the Bucks — heading their separate ways for an All-Star-break vacation, or simply heading home, or maybe heading anywhere out of the sight of a basketball court.

The Sixers are in desperate need of a break, and they’ve gotten one.

Seven days on the calendar divide one game from their next, with the Sixers picking up the so-called second half of their season Feb. 20 in Minnesota. And while they resume their practice schedule with Monday’s session at PCOM, this group has not been apart for a stretch this lengthy since prior to training camp.

“It’s crazy,” Jrue Holiday said, before boarding a flight to Houston for Sunday’s All-Star Game. “I think this team and these guys are a part of the most positive team I’ve ever been on.”

For a guy who’s experienced success at every level of his career, Holiday somehow credits these Sixers with staying the most confident, the most optimistic, among everyone with whom he’s played.

Kind of a stretch, isn’t it?“Not really,” Holiday said. “I’ve been in winning situations. And hey, we don’t want to be in this situation, but everybody comes to work every day with a smile on their face, talking to each other, being good teammates.

“It helps having good attitudes like that, on and off the court. If you come into work and people are moping, I walk out and the rest of my day I’m in the slums. If it’s not joyful and it’s gloomy, I’m gloomy the rest of the day. That’s the start of my day, seeing these guys.”

Smiles or not, here’s the situation the Sixers are facing: They’ll need wins in 19 of their remaining 31 games to break even. A .500 record might be just enough for the Sixers, who are four games back of eighth-place Milwaukee, to claim the Eastern Conference’s final playoff berth.

But that scenario leaves zero wiggle room for error. Posting such a record would require the Sixers to win 61 percent of their remaining games, 19 of which are on the road — including next Wednesday’s against the Timberwolves.

Still smiling?Losing has a way of creating a rift between players. It’s not unrealistic to think the Sixers, no matter how good they are at fending off pessimism, according to Holiday, are emotionally down after their tumultuous first-half showing.

They went more than two months without a winning streak. They’re down one of the league’s top big men, and they’re (still) unsure when Andrew Bynum will be back. They’re missing another big offseason get, and they’ll be without Jason Richardson the rest of the way. They’re without one of their captains, and there’s no telling how much weight the broad shoulders of Thad Young will be able to immediately carry once he returns.

Still smiling? The Sixers are. Somehow, so is their coach.

“I want to win. It’s not easy to lose,” Doug Collins said this week. “This is where I came as a young player, 22 years old, just got married, whose wife was expecting a child, who was just starting his life, who broke his foot early in his career, who went through all that sort of stuff, to fight every day to get where I am.

“To do that with this franchise, that’s why I came back here.”

Three years later, Collins and the Sixers are fighting through injury, fighting the urge to hang their heads, fighting for playoff positioning, fighting to stay relevant in the Eastern Conference.

And, if you believe what their All-Star point guard says, they’re smiling all the while.

The Sixers don’t need smiles. They need a spark. And in April, if you’re not having to count the Sixers’ second-half wins on your fingers and your toes, those smiles were empty.